Harry’s case. The Game is on
Right, I’ve just come out of North London County Court this afternoon and I’m far from happy.
Let me introduce you to Harry, not his real name. A 62 year old man, recently diagnosed with Stomach Cancer, who changed from self employment to benefits as a result if his inability to work, and ran up £400 in rent arrears while things were getting sorted.
His letting agent, well known to Safer Renting in two different boroughs for shady goings-on, responds to the arrears by illegally evicting Harry and seizing his possessions in lieu of rent.
Breach: Torts (interference with goods) Act 1977. Commonly know as ‘Trespass to goods’. llegal since 1977.
Where most rogue offenders have the good sense to simply deny any knowledge of the event, this dipstick leaves a note pinned to the tenant’s door saying:-
“We have changed the locks and have your possessions. If you pay us what we owe you will get you possessions back”.
As if this wasn’t evidence enough, the note was signed by the agent on headed paper of the company and with both mobile and landline numbers written on it. So mad and amateurish it caused much mirth in the Safer Renting office. A slam dunk you may think, but not so.
The chase begins
We phoned the agent who was entirely dismissive, even going so far as to mimic a sad, whining voice, saying “Oh poor man, he’s got cancer”, so we moved to stage two and sent letters before action to the agent, all ignored as we expected and went today for an injunction for the return of goods. We couldn’t go for an injunction for re-entry to his home because the property had already been re-let (the case of Love v.Herrity puts paid to that argument).
Instead, we were just trying to get his possessions back as an emergency expedient because without them he was rejected for homelessness assistance and further benefit claiming. A solicitor can add the unlawful eviction to the damages claim later on.
Should assistance have been refused?
No! but that’s another argument.
So we helped Harry to fill an injunction application. Why did we do this and not send him to a solicitor? Speed is one reason, we need to act very quickly if this agent, who as I say, we know from other cases, is to be prevented from destroying Harry’s goods.
The second reason is down simply to the desert of legal aid lawyers with a housing specialism who would even have the capacity to take Harry’s case on at short notice if indeed we could source one.
Harry used his last pennies to pay a non-housing solicitor, who simply wrote to the agent telling him to cough up. He didn’t get a response and Harry wasted his money So we rock up at the County Court having had to make an appointment to hand in the forms by phoning the court the day before.
Now the cost of an application for an injunction is £308 and with costs held as low as possible we set the initial damages at £100, so that there was only £35 to pay for kickstarting the claim but that is still £343, which Harry hasn’t got unless he can provide proof that his application for benefits have been approved, although not yet in payment.
Technical hitch
If you can prove this then you don’t have to pay the fee but all this benefits stuff is now online, under your own log-ins. Harry has all the stages of his claim to hand on his smartphone, apart from the one important document confirming he has been accepted for benefits.
The listings clerk says she can’t give him fee remission without that proof. He does have hard copy proof that would enable him to get the injunction for free but where is it?
That’s right, in the possession of the letting agent. The very reason for the injunction application.
We decamp to the job centre to try and get confirmation but the officer there tells Harry its available on his personalised, online account. Except it isn’t, at which point ‘Computer says no’ draws the shutters down on Harry’s chances.
And that’s where the case remains.
Harry has been illegally evicted
- He can’t gain re-entry because the property has been re-let.
- His possessions have been seized by the agent who refuses to release them.
- He can’t get an advance on his Universal Credit because they need certain documents he doesn’t at the moment have, because the agent has them and
- The homelessness unit won’t assist without the various proofs he needs, although to be fair, even if he did have them they might deem him not to be in priority need.
So the poor fella can’t move forward or back.
Among his possessions is his passport, which is actually enough to involve police but in reality, they aren’t interested, deeming all landlord and tenant matters to be civil in nature, not criminal. My colleague Sarah and I (read her funny blog entry about life at Safer Renting here) returned to Cambridge House to work out a Plan B. We don’t yet have one.
Reality dawns
This is the reality at the bottom end of renting folks.
The legislative breaches are there, the evidence is indisputable and Harry has us on his side. All that stands in his way are the procedures and laws designed to help him.
We can prosecute the agent for illegal eviction but that will take well over a year. We might even at some point be able to find him a housing solicitor who could do a damages claim against the agent but again this takes time We can help Harry to do a Rent Repayment Order and we will, but this also is no overnight solution and it doesn’t get his property back.
Even if the First Tier Tribunal were to find for Harry on an RRO claim they can’t enforce the debt. You have to fill in another form called an N322b, quoting s27 of the Tribunals Court and Enforcement Act 2007 to convert the Tribunal judgement into a county court money judgement.
Of course then, if they still don’t pay up, you have to find ways of recovering the money. Procedures, procedures and meanwhile, Harry is swapping between a few nights on his sister’s sofa and sleeping in his car.
And here is the final kicker
The named director of the agents, who we have to proceed against is an alias. This same individual has five completely different names that we know of and it’s entirely possible that the person who has to be subject to any proceedings doesn’t even exist.
“Harry hasn’t got unless he can provide proof that his application for benefits have been approved, although not yet in payment.”
Doesn’t he still qualify for being on low/no income?
https://www.gov.uk/get-help-with-court-fees
Income
If you’re not on any of those benefits, you need to earn less than £1,085 a month before tax if you’re single, or £1,245 if you have a partner.
Oh Ben. What a story. This poor guy. No greater advert for stable secure accessible affordable social housing do I think i’ve read really; the PRS is so unfit for purpose with gangsters like this on the high street. Your job is like some masterful game of Chess isn’t it, trying to outwit your opponents like this. If I had the money I’d give it to this tenant myself.
Yeah its not just the legal stuff, its the strategies. Like chess as you say there.
This particular agent has been on the ropes from enforcement several times and he just folds up his agency and opens up under a different name, with a new alias as company director. There is both a facebook page and a Reddit community who are onto him.
I am becoming very frustrated with criminals hiding behind limited company status. I’m just reading “A beauty queen’s guide to world peace” by Dan Plesch, where he lays out the problems caused globally by LL status but on a local level people like this consistently avoid paying for their crimes and they know it, which is why they do it.
I wouldn’t give up on the police so easily. Report it and if they try and fob you off by saying it’s a civil offence ask to speak to a superior and if no change take their numbers and write to the Chief Constable and ask him to explain why his officers are refusing to investigate a crime. It has worked for me in the past.
I find it hard to believe it can be so simple for someone to be a director of a letting agency using an alias. Would HMRC, money laundering, VAT or even anti terrorism not be interested?
David I get where you are coming from but we deal with 4 or 5 cases a week like this, 300 families in three years so far. Poor Harry is just another one for the list. The Police really are a waste of time in this department and none of us has the time or wherewithal to chase them down on just one case.
When I turn up for work tomorrow there will be another Harry in our inbox.
HMRC? Money laundering? A joke. Read this article here https://www.wired.co.uk/article/money-laundering-hmrc-tax-update
I know some Landlord Law Blog readers get the hump with me sometimes, thinking I’m scaremongering and tarring all with the same brush but I’m not. Statistically criminal and rogue activity may be small but in terms of numbers, its usually too much for enforcement teams to tackle
The wider problem is that if you ever managed to get in front of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Housing…. to tell that story, their response is likely to be to recommend more regulation.
You are probably right Dave but I am widely known for being critical of the amount of regulation there is. Safer Renting are not pushing for more regulation but to fund existing regulation, which the RLA is also calling for.
There is a great danger, that is already here, of government trying to solve a crisis with regulations but there is no point if politically you arent motivated to fund the regulation and just blame the policing authorities for not picking up the ball.
The Tenant Fees Act is a farago in making. All those things that agents wont be allowed to do from 1st June and all prosecutions must be by Trading Standards, who are probably even more rare than housing enforcement officers and who also have to deal with fake alcohol and tobacco, under aged sales, cyber crime and their biggest problem, doorstep crime. Dodgy letting agents being way down the list.
As with so much other legislation the breaches by the committed rogues will be widespread and numerous, mainly because of austerity cuts denuding public services, including police and the NHS. Government hates things that dont conform to a profit making market force
I used to do a few injunctions every year as a TRO in the Woolwich County Court (now closed down due to cuts) and I used two strategies in similar cases. One was to get a Bank Statement that showed how little money the client had in their account and that always worked to get remission of fees – with appropriate form EX 160A filled out. I used it for failed asylum seekers, destitute persons as well as unemployed clients.
You can also use another strategy I only ever used twice, for working people whose goods had been seized which was to sign a Declaration of Undertaking which promised to pay the Court the relevant fees once the client had access to their money should costs not be awarded against the person who had nicked their stuff. There again Woolwich was a very liberal court with staff we had a good relationship with.
I found that contacting the Burglary squad was always useful when dealing with goods seized by landlords/letting agents as it was good for their statistics as it was an open and shut case. They even let me share a PACE interview of a Letting Agent once as a result of getting involved. Burglary squad tends not to start work before 1000 in my experience.
Hope that helps!
Roger Barton
Tried the undertaking Rog. Listings clerk refused. Funnily enough the only other time I’ve had an alternative request for an undertaking refused was at Woolwich County Court. You obviously have more charm than me.
And the fee remission thing is different now universal credit has kicked in. Its all online, which means the listings clerk can check directly. Great for getting around the old problem of not having a hard copy of proof of benefits but in this case, the benefits agency hadnt loaded the important document up there.
Plan B is to have another go but as time goes by its more likely that the agent has destroyed his possessions. We known him from other cases.
Burglary squad? Havent tried that, might be worth a go but we do have other long term plans that I wont advertise here
Burglary was useful way to go for seized goods as once you had got over the “permanent intention to deprive” argument from the coppers I found the burglary squad liked the cases I sent them as they were good for their statistics. I could provide evidence and perpetrator and it was usually all wrapped up in a day or two with a formal police caution – maximising police stats for minimum effort.
As for charm – Its a sign of how charming you are you said what you said!